redefining mobility on big screen android devices

virus

Before we jump the gun, let’s be clear on one thing. Bluebox runs a security check mobile app for Android that measures the security level of your phone. It can be downloaded here.

What the folks at Bluebox found was that their test device was, let’s say obtained, from third party sellers which may have compromised. They ran the security check app and found loads of malware.

The Xiaomi Mi4 phone itself was a Chinese version, this means it’s not the international version sold in Singapore, India or Malaysia that is at fault.

What they found on the phone is scary. The third party Chinese retailers have been busy installing stuff into the phone without you knowing about it.

One particularly nefarious app was Yt Service. Yt Service embeds an adware service called DarthPusher that delivers ads to the device among other things[2]. This was an interesting find because, though the app was named Yt Service, the developer package was named com.google.hfapservice (note this app is NOT from Google). Yt Service is highly suspicious because it disguised its package to look as if it came from Google; something an Android user would expect to find on their device. In other words, it tricks users into believing it’s a “safe” app vetted by Google.

Other risky apps of note included PhoneGuardService (com.egame.tonyCore.feicheng) classified as a Trojan, AppStats classified (org.zxl.appstats) as riskware and SMSreg classified as malware[3]

So how do you know if your device is safe? You can take the Bluebox challenge and find out yourself. All you need is to download the free software from Bluebox on the Google Playstore

BlueBox Android App

What this app does is explain some of problems found on your OS. Most of these are not fixable on your own and require updates on the OS. For example the “Settings PendingIntent” vulnerability and ‘GraphicsBuffer Overflow’ are system based. You can’t change them on your own.

Apps with System Level Privilege

Another problem here is Bluebox will flag your device if you have too many System Level Privilege mobile apps installed. This is something out of your control as the apps are on Google Playstore with these requirements. Developers will make use of these APIs in order to create a functioning app and in the process, needs to read your phone state. This makes it difficult for people to approve or deny the system privileges as should you deny them, the app won’t install.

What you can do is write to the developer to ask them for clarification on why they would require these privileges in the first place before installing. If they ignore you, you can flag them up as suspicious.

Beyond this, there is nothing much you can do. Even by having security software installed, you can only detect suspicious apps during installation and avoid them. Security problems inherent in KitKat can only be solved when the system is updated. In the past, at least for my Samsung device, security updates have been rolled out to address some of the problems but Android security problems are much deeper and can only be rectified by Google themselves.

For the longest time, Android users were put in the same boat as Windows PC users where malware and Trojan horses on the Net would make their way onto the trusty computer to wreck havoc onto your daily lives. This vulnerability gave rise to an industry where major players designed firewall apps to protect you from malicious code.

Google had for some time refused to parse the code contained in apps which gave Android a bad name and only started doing so after grudgingly admitting to its own faults in the design of the operating system. This meant that some of the exploits had to be plugged but that is by no means a thorough job. Still, malware code can slip through the cracks thanks in part to its open nature.

Apple never had this problem due to it’s Nazi like approach to code validation. If anything is suspicious, and falls outside of their parameter for common decency, it gets booted out. Baby gets thrown out with the bathwater too.

Bring in the Big Guns

Malware, as it appears, is pretty easy to sort the problem out with Avast, which it has been dutifully doing for the last six months on my devices . So without further ado, let us welcome the new Avast Security & Anti Virus premium which unfortunately is more a hit or miss affair.

All Security programs do one thing and do it well, that is to monitor each app and check it for malicious code—something that Google has been far too lazy to do. To detect such code, the app checks it against a background list of malicious code found on a data base and reports back to you if such a program has indeed been infected.

Most of these features are already given FREE to users who install the app as can be seen from the above list. I have this running on my Android devices without any noticeable lag and works well even for smartphones and tablets with only 1GB of RAM. Those with far less RAM (512MB and below) will probably skip this as there won’t be enough RAM left to run your apps. So what’s the beef with the Go Premium feature?

Go Premium?

Here is the list of features that you will have to pay for….or so it seems.

★ App Locking: Locks an unlimited number of apps.

★ Ad Detector: Detects ads and provides full details of their tracking systems.

★ Geo-Fencing: Phone performs specified actions (e.g. lock, siren, send location) when outside of some set perimeter (e.g. you go to a cafe and enable it with a 500m perimeter, so if somebody steals your phone and takes it beyond this perimeter, it activates your specified actions).

★ Remote SMS: Remotely send SMS from the phone.

★ Remote Data Recovery: Remotely retrieve data from the phone.

★ Remote Identification: Take picture of the thief when he/she tries to unlock device (use front or back camera, with face recognition). Record audio, with voice recognition.

Curiosity killed the cat and the Ad detector feature is just another way for you to know which are serving up ads in-app versus those which desecrate your notification panel. But you know that already don’t you? In Jellybean, you can find out the offending app that sends out ads onto your notification panel by just holding down the ad that pops up to annoy you. This means there isn’t any use for this if you are already running on Google’s latest OS. It might come in handy if you are on ICS, and this is probably the only feature that will make sense if you don’t plan on upgrading the OS.

But on Jelly Bean, games like Angry birds already tell you outright that it is ad supported and as such, why would you want Avast to tell you that? And yes, it blindingly does that….and you have to pay just to know this.

Password Check is quite useless as you can already install another app to do that one function. I have Cerberus installed so it takes care of that function if I ever got my device stolen. With Cerberus, I can already remote wipe my device if it came online and take a picture of the culprit—negating the feature offered in Avast Premium.

The only two features in premium that has any form of justification for its cost is the Remote Backup and Geo Fencing.

For Remote Backup, you can take back all your home-made porn before remotely wiping out the data to prevent getting blackmailed for a million dollars by the pimply faced kid that stole it. GeoFencing is great if you happen to lose your device as often as you change underwear as it sets up a parameter (with the help of GPS) should it get stolen. So if your device starts to wail loud enough, be sure to run faster than Usain Bolt if you want to get it back.

Both these premium features don’t mean much in my book coz all devices can be turned off the moment it is stolen, as the hardware switch will be used to shut the device, failing which they would pry the battery out.

Now paying US$15 for an app that is going to help protect your device is well worth the cost but if you can already do so for free, it becomes really difficult to justify going premium. That said Avast is still a great app and I would highly recommend it even if you have no intention of going premium.